Ajay Goel, M.S., Ph.D.

Dynamic and passionate — with a formidable record of patented innovations in cancer care — Ajay Goel, Ph.D., M.S., is committed to developing better methods for the early detection and precision treatment of cancer. He joined City of Hope in June 2019 as founding chair of the new Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics and founding director of Biotech Innovations at Beckman Research Institute.

 

“City of Hope has a wonderful track record of moving discoveries from bench to clinic,” he said. “And by founding this new department, which will add a layer of earlier noninvasive diagnostics, we will hopefully make a difference in this war on cancer.”

 

A noted expert in gastrointestinal and other cancers, Goel is currently developing early-detection blood tests for colon, pancreatic and ovarian cancers — as well as a test for pancreatic cancer that can detect the disease seven years earlier than is now possible. Within the next few years, these tests are expected to become a simple and affordable part of everyone’s annual health physical, just like tests for diabetes or cholesterol.

 

He is also working with genomic-based precision oncology to provide answers to the question: Why do therapies work with some good candidates and not with others.

 

Goel was born in India, received his Ph.D. in biophysics from Punjab University, completed his postgraduate work at the University of California, San Diego, and went on to a noteworthy 16-year career at Baylor Scott & White Research Institute in Texas. He has authored more than 300 articles in peer-reviewed international journals and holds more than 30 advanced genomic and transcriptomic international patents .

 

One surprising fact about Goel: In addition to his technological expertise, he finds wisdom in the ancient Indian medical system Ayurveda, which has given us such natural therapies as the proven anti-inflammatory in turmeric. Prevention, he believes, is the best medicine.

 

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